radiotaxis

argentinaentaxiOhh I'm sorry this is coming in so much later than I planned...no good excuses. Anyways, something I've been wanting to write about, which I definitely should write about is the whole situation with taxis in Buenos Aires. It's not incredibly amazing or anything, but I think worth talking about. That's because here, they are a lot, lot cheaper, and it seems like there are more of them. Also, taxi drivers are famously a lot of things, and often the best people to speak with.
In my first weeks here, someone mentioned that Buenos Aires is one of the only places where cab drivers have college degrees. In my opinion, this is a happy and a sad thing to say about the city, and Argentina in general--good education/few job opportunities. Public university here is free and quality. While there are some problems and strikes within the universities, I'm sure all of us from the States can imagine how different it must be to have free higher education. University here really is equal opportunity.
Back to taxi cabs (called RadioTaxis here)...a ride that might cost $10US in NY is about $3US here, more or less. Also, while public transportation seems really good within the city (with buses going EVERYwhere), you must take a taxi to the airport, or get a ride from someone (as far as I know). This all comes down to much more taxi activity than I'm used to. It's nice and also luxurious.
The best thing about taking more cabs is that I speak most of my Spanish with the drivers. In almost ride I've taken, some interesting conversation has sprouted, on any number of topics, and always in the native language. This is exciting and fun for me, because this is the type of Spanish I am most comfortable with. Since I learned all the Spanish I knew (before coming here) from traveling around and trying to communicate, speaking to drivers is nice for me.
At the moment I can't remember any specific conversations in cabs, but if I have (or remember) a really interesting one, I will try to post it here later on.